Damage Control (The Hollywood Series Book 2) Read online

  “It’s probably not. She just thought…” Grace averted her gaze and stared down at the city below them.

  “Thought what?”

  Grace continued to study LA’s skyline.

  “Thought what?” Lauren repeated with a little more force behind it.

  Slowly, Grace turned her head until her disturbingly blue eyes met Lauren’s. “She…we…thought… We were wondering if it’s such a good idea to let myself be represented by a gay publicist.”

  Lauren stiffened. Of course, she had faced discrimination once or twice in her life, but, usually, her sexual orientation was no big deal for her clients. She hadn’t thought that the friendly, approachable Grace would care one way or another. You should know better by now. Nothing is real in this town. It’s all just an illusion.

  “Whatever you think of my competency as a publicist,” Lauren said, carefully modulating her volume, “I want to make one thing crystal clear: I’m not in the habit of making passes at straight women, especially not straight women who are clients of mine.” Just the opposite. She’d just been put on probation for rejecting the advances of a supposedly straight female client who’d made a drunken pass at her.

  Grace shook her head, making her blonde hair fly. “I’m not implying that you would. Really.” She reached across the table and touched Lauren’s arm.

  When Lauren stared down at the warm hand on her forearm, Grace quickly pulled her fingers away.

  “Personally, I couldn’t care less whether you’re gay, straight, bi, or sleeping with your dog.”

  Lauren made a face. “Nice comparison.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.” Grace rubbed her face and then peeked up through her fingers. “I’m really making a mess of this, aren’t I?”

  The sheepish expression on her face almost made Lauren smile. Oh, no, don’t let that pretty face fool you. You’re angry with her, remember? “Yeah, I’m afraid you are.”

  Grace sighed. “That article in Tinseltown Talk has really made me a bit paranoid. When I saw you…”

  “Saw me?” Lauren frowned. “Saw me doing what?”

  Grace nibbled on her lip.

  “If you want me to continue as your publicist, we need to learn to be completely honest with each other.”

  Staring at the bottle on the table, Grace said, “You suggested that it might be a good idea for me to be seen with Nick, so I went to El Niu on Saturday to have dinner with him.”

  Lauren connected the dots in one point five seconds. Grace had seen her with Peyton, had probably seen them kiss good-bye. “Oh.” Damn. Sometimes, even a city the size of Los Angeles was too small. Lauren wasn’t ashamed that Grace had seen her kiss another woman, but she liked to keep work and her private life separate.

  For a moment, they were both silent. The pumps in the pool came on, circulating the water.

  “All I could think of was that I might look guilty by association,” Grace finally said. “I didn’t want anyone to think that I’m gay just because I hired a gay publicist.”

  Lauren wanted to hold on to her anger but found that she couldn’t. As silly as such an assumption was, she couldn’t promise Grace that none of the gossips in Hollywood would think that. “Do you want another publicist? I think I could talk Ms. Chandler into taking you on herself.”

  “No,” Grace said with a vehement shake of her head. “No, I don’t want another publicist. I told my mother that. You were right with what you said earlier. It hasn’t even been a week, and I want to give you a chance to prove yourself.”

  Great. One more person she had to prove herself to. No pressure or anything.

  Grace studied her face. “But I’d, of course, understand if you don’t want me as a client anymore.”

  Lauren had thought she’d kept her feelings hidden behind a shield of professionalism, but apparently, Grace was good at reading people’s expressions and sensing their moods. “No, that’s all right. I’d like to keep working as your publicist.”

  Grace flashed her legendary smile. “Good. Thank you.”

  “So you’ll let my boss know that I’m back on your account?”

  “I’ll have my people call your people,” Grace said with another smile.

  Even Lauren had to grin. She cursed the actress’s charm, which made it impossible to stay angry with her. “I’d better get back to the office, then.” She got up and followed Grace back through the living room and the foyer to the front door.

  They both paused in front of the open door.

  “I’m really sorry,” Grace said. “It was never my intention to—”

  “Let’s just forget it and move on.”

  Grace nodded. “Okay.”

  Lauren slid her hand into her pocket, searching for her car keys. “If you want, call me later to talk about the campaign for your movie. I contacted the studio, and they sent me the posters they want to use. I worked on an e-mail campaign all morning, and I have some ideas I want to run by you.”

  “Sure. I’ll call you later.” Grace’s smile faltered, and her full lips formed a tight line. “But first, there’s another call I have to make.”

  Grace hated fighting with her mother. It didn’t happen often, because Grace gave in most of the time, but when they did fight, her mother usually used any argument she could, no holds barred, bringing up every transgression she could remember from Grace’s childhood. For a moment, Grace considered hanging up before her mother could answer the phone, but then she sternly told herself to woman up and clutched the phone more tightly.

  “Hello, darling,” her mother said. “We should really try to get you on The Tonight Show a week or two before the premiere. I just watched an episode with that new guy, Jimmy, and—”

  “Mom, you’re my manager, not my publicist. Don’t you think you should leave it for Lauren to decide what talk shows would be best for me to do?”

  Her mother was silent for a moment, which would have alerted Grace to the fact that something was going on, even if she hadn’t already known.

  “About that,” her mother said and cleared her throat. “I called Ms. Chandler this morning and told her we’d prefer to go with another publicist.”

  Grace took a deep breath. “No, Mom. We are not going with another publicist.” There. She’d said it.

  “Darling, I’m afraid you don’t understand.”

  “No. You are the one who doesn’t understand. You can’t keep making decisions like this without even consulting me first. This has to stop—now!”

  Her mother sucked in an audible breath, not used to Grace talking to her in such a firm tone. “I’m only trying to do what’s best for you.”

  Grace sighed. “I know,” she said, more softly now. “And I appreciate it. I really do; you know that. But firing one publicist in a week is more than enough. I say we stick with Lauren for now.”

  “But she’s gay,” her mother said.

  “Yes, she is. That doesn’t make her a bad publicist.”

  “Maybe not, but what if people think—?”

  “What if they think I fired her just because of her sexual orientation? I can’t afford to alienate any demographic group,” Grace said, using the only argument she knew would work with her mother. “Being caught discriminating against employees is a serious thing.”

  Her mother gulped. Finally, she said, “At the very least, she should be more discreet if she wants to continue working as your publicist.”

  No way was she telling Lauren that. Grace said nothing.

  “So,” her mother said, “what do you think about doing The Tonight Show?”

  Lauren knocked on Marlene’s door at nine the next morning.

  Marlene was on the phone but waved her in.

  While Lauren sat in the visitor’s chair and listened to Mar
lene artfully buttering up an Academy member, she mentally went over her to-do list for the day.

  After a minute or two, Marlene ended the call and gave Lauren her full attention. “What can I do for you?”

  “Have you checked Twitter this morning?”

  “Not yet. What’s going on?”

  “K-Cee got into a fight with a fan who tweeted that he didn’t like K-Cee’s new album.”

  Marlene groaned. “How bad was it?”

  “Let’s just say I learned a few new cuss words,” Lauren said. For a man who wrote such boring lyrics, he’d come up with some pretty imaginative insults; she had to give him that. “This is the fourth PR nightmare he’s created in as many weeks. Or is it the fifth? I’ve lost track.”

  “What do you recommend?” Marlene regarded her as if she was testing her again, trying to see if she’d stick to her principles.

  Lauren calmly met her gaze. “We should give him the ax. Life’s too short to work with clients who never listen. If he continues like this, he won’t just harm his own reputation but ours too.”

  Marlene tapped her chin twice and then nodded. “Okay. Do you want me to let him know, or do you want to do the honors?”

  “I’ll do it.” It wasn’t that Lauren enjoyed dropping clients from her roster, no matter how difficult they were, but this was her last duty as K-Cee’s publicist, so she didn’t want to shirk it.

  “Good.” Marlene turned her attention to her computer screen, wordlessly dismissing her.

  Lauren got up and walked to the door.

  When she opened it, Marlene’s voice reached her. “Ms. Durand called me yesterday.”

  Lauren turned back around.

  “She said it was all just a misunderstanding.”

  A misunderstanding. Sure. Suppressing a huff, Lauren nodded. “I went over to her house yesterday, and we cleared the air between us. I’m confident there won’t be any other problems.”

  “Let’s hope not,” Marlene said.

  Lauren heard what she wasn’t saying: or your career at CTP will be toast.

  CHAPTER 5

  Lauren’s phone rang for the fifth time since she’d sat down to put together the PowerPoint presentation. Still clicking away on the slide she was working on, she reached for the phone and tucked it between her shoulder and ear so she could continue to work. “Chandler & Troy Publicity, Lauren Pearce speaking.”

  “Hi, Lauren,” a man’s voice came through the receiver. Before Lauren could place the familiar voice, he added, “This is Stan. Stan Zaleski. I wanted to give you a heads-up about one of your clients.”

  Stan regularly blogged for Hollywood Affairs, a website that posted news about the love lives and sexcapades of celebrities. Lauren had managed to build a relationship with him in the past year, knowing good connections to the media paid off, even if she personally didn’t like their style of reporting. She bolded the improved social media statistics in the presentation. “Thanks, Stan. You know I always appreciate that. So,” she said with a laugh, “who got caught cheating this week?”

  “Grace Durand.”

  The phone slipped and nearly crashed to the floor. Lauren caught it just in time and hurriedly brought it back to her ear. “I didn’t think you were reading drivel like Tinseltown Talk, Stan. You know that nine times out of ten, they just pull the stories they run out of their asses.”

  Stan chuckled. “True. But not this time. I did some digging, and I’ve got a source who swears that Grace spent the night with another actress at the Ocmulgee Riverside Inn while they were shooting in Macon.”

  Lauren closed the presentation, her attention now fully on the phone call. “People think they see celebrities all the time. They imagine all kinds of things; you know that,” she said, trying to sound casual even though the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Things didn’t look good for Grace. News like that fit right into Stan’s monthly column, The Celluloid Closet, in which he often outed celebrities.

  “So you think my witness also imagined them booking the room using a credit card that was registered to someone named Betty G. Duvenbeck?”

  Shit. Lauren instantly recognized Grace’s less-than-glamorous birth name. “Even if it were her—and I’m not saying it was—can’t two colleagues share a hotel room without people misconstruing it as something else?”

  Stan barked out a sarcastic laugh. “When was the last time you shared a hotel room with a woman in a purely friendly fashion?”

  Lauren gritted her teeth. “That’s different. I’m gay.”

  “And so is she,” Stan said.

  “Stan, you know me. You know I always advise my clients to come out. Don’t you think I would have told her the same if she were gay?”

  That made him pause for a second. “If she’s not, she can tell me so herself. I’d really like to include a direct statement from her before I put the article online.”

  “What’s your deadline?” Lauren asked. She hated playing his game, but she knew he would post his article with or without her help. At least this way, she could have some control over what he wrote.

  “I want to post it before the people on the East Coast are asleep.”

  “Today? I don’t even know if I can get a hold of her that fast. Come on, give me some time,” Lauren said. “If what you say is true, it’ll still be a big story tomorrow. But if you’re wrong, it’ll make the entire Celluloid Closet series look dubious.”

  He hesitated.

  Lauren sensed that she had him hooked. Now she needed to reel him in slowly, using another bait. “Give me until tomorrow, and I’ll throw in an interview with one of my high-profile clients.”

  “Deal,” he said. “But I need her statement by noon tomorrow, or I’ll post what I have. I’m sick of celebrities hitting it rich with straight flicks while leading a double life, as if being gay were a dirty little secret they needed to hide.” Stan, gay himself, was passionate in his belief that the stars and starlets had a social responsibility to come out and make it easier for gay and lesbian teenagers to do the same.

  Lauren knew he wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger on his column, with or without a statement from Grace. “I’ll get you a statement on time.” She ended the call and jumped up. Leaning over her desk, she powered down her computer. On her way out the door, she stopped at Tina’s desk. “I need you to clear my schedule for the rest of the day.”

  Tina opened Lauren’s calendar on her computer screen. “Even the event with your parents tonight?”

  Especially the event with my parents. “Tell them I’ll try to make it.”

  When she stepped out of the elevator, she reached for her phone and called Grace, not wanting to show up unannounced a second time.

  The call went straight to voice mail.

  Cursing, Lauren got into her car.

  Nick aimlessly walked around the living room, touching the armchair, the coffee table, and the lamp in the corner as if refamiliarizing himself with everything after being gone from the house for months.

  From her place on the couch, Grace watched him without saying anything. He looked good—the quintessential action star with a healthy tan, windblown dark hair, and impossibly broad shoulders.

  Finally, he turned to face her. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have your lawyer here to talk about this?”

  Grace had considered it for a while, but now she shook her head. “I told you I don’t need a lawyer to talk to you. I think we can handle this on our own for now.”

  His dark brows knitted together as he regarded her across the coffee table, the suspicion obvious on his handsome face.

  Was this what Hollywood had made out of them? Two people who no longer trusted each other’s intentions? That was one of the reasons Grace had decided not to get her lawyer involved just yet. She
didn’t want to believe that Nick would try to go after her money.

  After studying her for a few moments, Nick plopped into the armchair and gave her one of the boyish grins that had won her heart three years ago.

  Grace barely felt like the same woman anymore.

  “Some days, I think I’m crazy for letting you go so easily,” he said with a slight shake of his head.

  Nothing about this was easy for Grace. Even though she knew it was the right thing to do, she’d struggled with this decision for months. But Grace had been an actress all her life, so she drew on her acting skills to hide her feelings and return his smile. “Well, you clearly are.”

  His grin broadened. “Oh, yeah? What about you? You’re just as crazy for giving me up.” Sobering, he put one of his ankles on his opposite knee as if he needed a bit of a barrier between them. “Why are you?”

  He’d asked before, when she’d told him it might be a good idea to take a break, some time apart to think. She hadn’t had a satisfying answer then, and she didn’t have one now. How could she explain to him what she barely understood herself? “I don’t know, Nick. I just think there’s something missing. Obviously, you felt the same way or you wouldn’t have found someone new so fast.”

  He tilted his head and studied her. “You’re not jealous, are you?”

  “Not even a little bit.” It was the truth. Being replaced within weeks by a twenty-one-year-old dancer with abs to die for hurt her ego, but not her heart. “And that tells me that getting a divorce is the right thing to do.” As far as she was concerned, their marriage was over for good. Now it was just a matter of making it official—and that was what worried her most. “Let’s just hope that the media and our fans will think so too.”

  Nick’s frown deepened the little scar on his forehead. He liked to tell people that it was from one of the stunts in his movies, when he’d actually tripped in the bathroom and hit his head on the toilet. “You don’t think it’ll hurt your career, do you? I mean, you’re rock solid, right?”